In Dreams
by Crackinois
Summary: Follow up to my post 2.10 fic "Make You Watch" picks up directly where the previous fic left off and continues to explore the aftermath of Hoyt.  **WARNING** Rape trigger, be advised.
1. Lights on, Lights Off

**Author's Note:** This is a follow up to my re-working of the end of 2.10. It picks up directly where Make You Watch leaves off. *****WARNING***** This fic will contain rape triggers, please be advised. Part 1 of 3.

**Make You Watch** can be found here: .net/s/7379274/1/Make_You_Watch Or if FFN jacks with the link just click on my profile and go to Make You Watch, it is necessary to read that fic before reading this one.

**In Dreams**

**CH 1: Lights On, Lights Off**

_Lights on._ She wasn't sure how long it had been since she had answered Jane's question with that response. Lights on, as if the mere presence of illumination would vanquish the darkness. The real darkness. Not the black night that would descend on the bedroom when the lamp was turned off. No, the real darkness, the terrifying presence of Charles Hoyt that still lingered around her and stuck to her skin. It didn't; the light couldn't do that. It wasn't magic, there was no such thing.

_He told you that I loved you…I do. I love you, Maura._ The words echoed through her ears, as close to any kind of magical panacea there could be for the abject fear and horror that had settled into her chest. And yet, the realization consumed Maura in the well lit room as the minutes ticked by on the clock, marching the worst day of her life forward towards a new dawn that the sun had not set on that fear. The words of _I love you_ were only enough to hold her precariously on the edge, they couldn't pull her all the way back. Not yet. So, she hung there, body suspended by invisible and oh so fragile lifelines over an ominous void.

"Jane?" Maura whispered into the warm neck that served as her pillow, her hand trailing lightly from Jane's shoulder down her arm. No response.

_It won't feel like this forever._ That's what Jane had said, only hours earlier. Maura wanted to believe her; if there was anyone in the world she could trust it was Jane. But, in the dim light of the haunted bedroom it didn't feel like Hoyt's shadow would let go.

Maura closed her eyes and let the tears seep out, waiting until her face was soaked to wipe futilely at the little tributaries that stained her cheeks and dribbled the moisture down to Jane's chest. "I'm not as strong as you," she mumbled with a sigh of defeat. "I thought maybe I could be."

_Lights on_. A stupid throw back to a childhood comfort.

_Maura, darling…there are no such things as monsters_, the placating though somewhat exasperated tone of her mother rang through her memory. _But, I'll leave the light on if it makes you feel any better._

She sat up, stared down at Jane's sleeping form, her furrowed brow and the slight tremor behind her eyelids as she dreamed.

_Lights on. There are no such things as monsters. _ "Yes there are mother, and they come just as easily in the light," Maura flicked off the lamp.

* * *

><p><em>Nooo!<em> It all seemed surreal in the moment. It couldn't be happening. Charles Hoyt had not just sat up unrestrained from his bed in the prison infirmary and attacked Jane again. Her thoughts, her fears they resided only with Jane, what Hoyt would do and how powerless she was to stop him. _Useless_, she told herself over and over as Hoyt leaned over the body of her best friend, the cold steel blade of his scalpel exacting familiar punishment on her neck, _you are useless_.

And then he was coming towards her, the simultaneous depraved and vacant look in his eyes as he brandished the stun gun. _Useless._ The control was so easily taken from her, she knew every way in which the body worked, every way in which to manipulate it but biology was more than a capable foe to will. Her body betrayed her, completely subdued by the electric current that coursed through her and locked every muscle in dysfunctional contraction.

_Move. MOVE._ To no avail.

His body sunk down on top of her, acrid breath flowing so calmly from his mouth across her face. _Monster. _

_You'll feel a slight pinch, Doctor_. She could feel the blade drag slowly across her skin.

The mere presence of him hovering over her was weight, an unbearable weight that threatened to crush her with fear. His chest made contact with hers, lips so close to her own they almost touched; Maura could taste him as she inhaled his breath. Charles Hoyt was poison and she was being forced to drink him in.

_She loves you_, he whispered, _but she's never told you that. She wants to touch you, slip her fingers inside your hot, tight little body. But she hasn't. I'm going to fuck you like she's always wanted to, and when her voice is hoarse from screaming; you're going to watch me kill her. But don't worry doctor, I told you before I wouldn't kill you, and I won't._

This was darkness, the real darkness. The complete and total despair of uselessness and hopelessness and worst of all in that very moment the sensation of being totally alone with evil. _There are no such things as monsters. Lies. There is evil and there are monsters…and sometimes…they win._ She couldn't hear Jane screaming. No one was fighting for her; she couldn't even fight for herself.

The weight grew heavier. His chest was fully flush against hers, hands on either shoulder, curling into her skin. Bile. He reeked. And then she realized it wasn't him, but herself that stank. Hands dragged down her body, snaking under her own bound arms that she held protectively against her chest, to fondle her breasts. _Useless._ Lower the physical contact of his hand to her body traveled, the intensity of the fear growing; the fire in her veins traveled with his calculated touch.

_Just kill me._

His fingers reached the hem of her skirt, toyed with it. It was all a game. It always had been. Charles Hoyt was a master strategist and possessed patience in seemingly endless supply…and this was what he channeled it towards…torture and destruction. _Mother_, her childlike voice lingered in the resurrected past, _there are monsters; I just know it._

He looked away, presumably at Jane and then back in her eyes. The burn scars on his face rippled and twisted with sick delight. Fingers moved from fabric to skin. The blinding gleam of the fluorescent lights put the whole scene on visual display and in that moment she wished for darkness. Children had it all wrong.

_I love you, Jane. I'm sorry._ She closed her eyes, held her breath as the rough pads of his fingertips assaulted the delicate skin of her inner thigh. _Move. MOVE. Futile._

_I win_, he sneered, fetid breath bathing her in impending shame. _I'm going to fuck you like she's always wanted to_. If only she could forget those words…_like she's always wanted to._ His fingers ghosted over her crotch and pulled at the edge of her underwear…

* * *

><p>Maura gasped as her body wrested back control from her subconscious. She sat up; her frantic gulps of hair only exacerbating the lightheaded disorientation from her dream-induced apnea.<p>

_Lights off._ The darkness was an unexpected ally. She was weak, crying again. "I'm useless," she sniffled out amidst the choking sobs.

"No you're not," Jane's voice was soft and gentle on her neck as her arm wrapped tightly around Maura's body and pulled her in close. "Never say that, do you hear me?"

Maura nodded, closed her eyes as reassuring kisses beat back the feel of Hoyt on her and around her. Jane pulled them back down to the bed, the slow caress of her hands allowing exhaustion to assert leverage over fear.

"Sure you want the light off?" Jane mumbled, her hand reaching through pitch black to fumble for the lamp switch.

"Yes," Maura curled into Jane's body, fingers seeking out the scar on her side first before moving to her chest, her palm settling over the constant thump of the red muscle below.

_This is real_, she reminded herself, hand gripping at the warm skin and the bones beneath as if she could reach through the layers and hold that heart in her hand, be as close to it as possible, leach its strength. "Lights off."


	2. The Boogeyman Has Blue Eyes

**Author's Note**: Part 2 of 3. Again, be advised ***Warning*** for Rape triggers.

**CH 2: The Boogeyman has Blue Eyes**

If only everything could be reduced to weights and measures. Quantifiable calculations that could be infinitely replicated without error, there was beauty in that; beauty in the simplicity of the predictable no matter how cognitively complex the formula or proof might be.

The body could not be forced into such standardization. In the organic variableness of human existence two plus two equaled four only when it didn't equal something else. Jane shot herself, and she should have died, but she didn't. Hold everything constant, the same shot, the same trajectory on ten different people and there were only odds as to who would live and who would die. No certainty. Sometimes the will is stronger than the body.

Maura fought the urge to sleep. She scooted down lower on Jane's body to place her ear where her palm rested over a steadily beating heart. The cadence reverberated through her body; the only rhythm she heard, the only pulse she felt was Jane's. Jane was strong, in body and will.

_And he knew today, Maura, he knew that you were my weakness…But, he didn't know that you're also my strength._ Maura turned her head, pressing her lips to Jane's skin, tasting the meter of her life. _I don't feel like your strength._

She could rattle off innumerable ways in which the body was a marvel of fortitude. It could be punished, taken to the brink of torture the mind could conjure and still not break. It could be beaten, crushed, torn, sliced, pierced and yet it could live. Parts could be lost, parts rendered nonfunctional and yet it could live. But, there was no certainty. The organic vessel with its delicate tissue, its finite supply of necessary fluids, its seemingly fragile frame of bone and cartilage could defy all boundaries of reasonable expectation of survival…it could also just as easily succumb to the microscopic or the mundane. For everything science and medicine had evolved to be the very machine that gave human agency substance to perform those cerebral explorations was still very much a mystery.

And if the body, when it came down to it remained ultimately unquantifiable, the inner recesses of the mind were another impossible calculation altogether. The challenges of solving the body's riddles were what propelled her into medicine. There are ranges of expectations one can hold fast to in her line of work. But, the realm of the mind and emotion had always presented a more daunting enigma. If there could be relatively little certainty in the body's reaction to trauma, the unknown of the mind's reaction was truly terrifying.

So, Maura fought biology, tried to stave off sleep to spare herself from the unknown of dreams. The mind like the body needs time to heal, but the psyche isn't tissue and there are no stitches to knit back together a fractured spirit.

_But, Edward at school says the boogeyman is real…he has no face and hollow sockets where his eyes should be. He kills children in their sleep._ Maura's eyes fluttered, body once again giving in to exhaustion as the long ago memory in her childhood bedroom flashed in her mind. _There is no such thing as the boogeyman_; her mother pushed her gently back down to the pillow. _There is no such thing as a monster man with no eyes._

"No…" Maura muttered softly as her eyes fluttered shut and didn't reopen, "…sleep." A soft moan slipped past her lips as slumber took over. _His eyes are blue._

* * *

><p>He was enjoying this. Truly enjoying it. Hoyt could mimic any emotion and the average person that hadn't dedicated time to decoding the outward expression of feeling would be fooled. His emotional charade was as obvious on their previous meeting as his sick and genuinely honest reveling in the circumstances of their current meeting was now. Maura wanted to believe that monsters like Hoyt had no feeling; that was how they perpetrated their acts of vile indecency on other human beings, by feeling nothing. It wasn't like that. He could feel, could take pleasure, could enjoy…and he was, enjoying every moment of her breaking.<p>

Lips, pale, drained, pencil-thin lips inched closer and closer to her own until they pressed against her, consuming her mouth, his tongue flicking out in serpentine fashion to tease her as he tasted. _Bite him._ _Move._ She couldn't, she was paralyzed. He took, and she had to let him.

_I wonder…if you've imagined what kissing her would be like? Because I know she's imagined what it would taste like to kiss you._ His voice rasped in her ear as he moved again to her mouth, sucking on her lower lip before his tongue forced entrance. _Mmm, like vanilla and defeat._

_She wants to touch you, slip her fingers inside your hot, tight little body._

_Please. _Maura thought she said it, though she'd regained just enough control of her faculties to utter the words. _Please, stop._ If the plea was audible, it had no effect. He was unfazed, his mission unchanged. Charles Hoyt was a destroyer and in that act he asserted ownership. Shatter the self and break the body and in the aftermath own the fruit of that destruction – misery.

The rough, cracked skin of his hand scratched up the inside of her thigh as he kneaded at her soft flesh. Higher his malevolent caress trailed, sliding easily under the hem of her skirt. Higher still as he traced the pronounced ridge of her pelvis before fingering the waistband of her underwear.

Maura closed her eyes. _Jane. Please, Jane._ And still she couldn't move. _Open your eyes_, an amorphous voice instructed…and she did to the sight of Charles Hoyt still pressed down on top of her. _The boogeyman has blue eyes._

Calloused fingers scraped across her underwear, pushing down between her legs and cupping her through fear-stained satin. The only movement she could respond with…full body trembles as his fingers pushed the flimsy fabric aside. Skin on skin, as his gnarled digits roamed through her.

_A surgeon's hands are quite deft, wouldn't you say? Aww, now Dr. Isles, you're not wet for me? I should be offended. I bet if these were Jane's fingers_…he chuckled aloud to himself

The rate of her heartbeat accelerated with each stroke. Faster and faster until the muscle's frenetic pounding had her entire body poised to burst. _Cardiac arythmia. Maybe I'll just die._

His fingers teased for a moment longer before thrusting with all his force inside. Lips curling upward in devilish grin of sadistic pleasure as he thrust inside her again…and again…and again.

_Maura. Maura. Maura!_

* * *

><p>"Maura! Wake up!"<p>

Every ounce of strength she had tried to muster in the infirmary, laid out on the gurney, locked in her own body propelled her forward. Every once muted and paralyzed muscle firing simultaneously launching her into Jane's body. She crashed with a bone-jarring thud into open arms.

"You were dreaming. Maur, you were dreaming," Jane's hands brushed the sweat-plastered hair back from her face as she tilted her chin up.

Everything burned, as if her heart pumped acid and not blood through her veins. Her hands shook as she dug them into the bare skin of Jane's back. Her lip quivered as her mouth recalled the acrid taste of Hoyt on her and in her. Faint breaths became more noticeable until soft lips pressed against her own. The trembles stopped.

"It was just a dream," Jane whispered into the kiss.

"It felt…I feel…" Maura stammered.

"I know," Jane eased her back down to the bed and propped herself up so she could look down at Maura as her hand caressed lightly from forehead through damp hair, down her cheek and back again. "Open your eyes." Reluctantly, Maura complied.

"Tell me what you see."

"You, Jane. I see you."

Jane held up her palm, looked at the scar and then turned it for Maura to see, "I know. Believe me, I know."

"I feel so weak," Maura's voice was barely an anguished whisper.

"You're not weak. Look at me." Jane cupped her face, thumbs wiping back the tears, "We won. We're strong…together. I'm not invincible, Maura, and if I act like it it's all a show. I know about the dreams and the nagging fear and the self-loathing and the what ifs and the if I had onlys. It doesn't matter. It took me a long time to realize that, to realize that he couldn't take away what I wouldn't let him. You're the first person that really made me feel worthwhile after him and you gave me back everything I thought he had stolen. And when the doubt crept in, you pushed it back. A weak person can't do that, can't be that for someone else."

Maura pulled Jane down half on top of her, one arm looping around her waist, the other around her back. "It won't feel like this forever?"

Jane kissed her neck, "It won't, I promise."


	3. No More Monsters

**Author's Note:** Part 3 of 3. Thank you to everyone who has suffered through the angst to read and review. Also, a special thanks to Anamatics, who has been my sounding board for this piece. The rape trigger warning continues for this chapter, so please be advised.

**CH 3: No More Monsters**

Jane sat up and reached for the t-shirt at the end of the bed that she'd never put on. She tossed her bra to the floor and paused, hand tracing across her own scar as a dull and sympathetic twinge rippled through her side. _I'm a curse_. She sighed and slipped the t-shirt on.

It wasn't fair: to feel like a pestilence, a blight on honest and good people who deserved better. Her parents, her brothers, by ties of blood they were stuck with her. And they had had more than 30 years to accustom themselves to the next challenge she would bring. But, not Maura. Maura didn't have to choose this. And yet, before any avowals of feelings more than friendship had been made, she had brought that curse to Maura and it had nearly cost her everything, cost them both everything.

Guilt. Jane wasn't sure what it was like to live without guilt. As Italian-American and Catholic it seemed almost part and parcel on some level to her daily existence. Hoyt had brought new meaning and depth to her conception of guilt.

_You can't go back._ Angela's tear-laden voice echoed in her ear as she recalled the look of terror and desperation on her mother's face as she sat on the edge of her hospital bed those few years ago. _You can't go back_, she had said over and over, _no more being a cop, no more_! She'd dismissed the plea out of hand. _It's my life._ She had thought that then. _My life. No one else's but mine_. Jane never realized how obscenely wrong she was, until she saw Hoyt move towards Maura, until she felt the dismembering panic at the thought of harm coming to someone she loved. In that moment she experienced clarity unlike she ever had previously. If the life of someone else could mean that much to her, then her life must mean that much to others.

It would never go away, that guilt. She ran her hands through her matted hair and then wiped at her swollen and enfeebled eyes. She could push her away, save Maura from the next time, whatever hell, fire and brimstone the twisted fates that lived in the shadow of her life had in store. She could. The thought had crossed her mind in the uninhibited moments between consciousness and sleep.

Jane took a deep breath and settled back down beside Maura; propped on her elbow she delicately entangled her fingers in the still damp hair that lingered from Maura's last nightmare. Bloodshot hazel eyes stared back in the minimal glow cast by the lamp. She wouldn't. Because she deserved…they both deserved love, understanding. As Jane watched Maura look back at her, she knew that Maura was the only one who could understand her, the only one who really ever had and the only one she wanted to love her and the only one she wanted to love in return.

Maura managed a small smile, "I love your eyes." Her hand moved to Jane's face and ran along the ridge of her eyebrow and down her cheek, "They're so gentle."

Jane settled down on her side and pulled Maura into her arms, "Try to sleep again."

"Did you believe in monsters, when you were a child?" Maura tilted her head so she could continue to look Jane in the eye.

"I've told you about my fear of witches…other monsters? Yeah, probably at some point or another."

Maura took a deep breath, closing her eyes as she inhaled and the story jogged back into her memory, "When I was six, a boy at my school told a ghost story one day…about the boogeyman. It terrified me and I was convinced monsters were real. After the second night of insisting sleeping with the lights on and having her check all of the closets my mother became exasperated with my inability to comprehend the reality that the boogeyman was a figment of an overactive imagination and she refused to placate me with the pre-bedtime checks. I had nightmares for weeks. I'd wake up in a sweat and crying in the middle of the night, but I…never woke my parents up to tell them. I thought that they would think I was silly. I've never had anyone to turn to after a nightmare."

Jane frowned, pulling Maura in close as she snaked her hand underneath her shirt to rub deep and soothing circles on her back. No, she couldn't push Maura away; she couldn't run. They were too much a part of one another now.

"When I had nightmares," Jane began, placing a soft kiss to Maura's forehead, "this is what Ma would do…rub my back and stay with me until I feel asleep. If it was a really bad one, sometimes she'd sleep the whole night with me."

"It's as if today, I realized for the first time that monsters really do exist," Maura's voice grew quieter as Jane's strokes began to lull her back into a dangerous unconsciousness.

Jane closed her eyes, "Yeah…but, good guys exist too. And sometimes we win."

"I know."

"You're not alone anymore, Maura."

"I know," Maura's voice trailed off as she again succumbed to sleep.

* * *

><p>Whimpers, that was all she could manage as Hoyt extracted his fingers from between her legs. <em>Don't worry, Doctor, I can do much better<em>. His yellow teeth sneered at her from behind thin and cracked lips as gruff hands grabbed her by the collar and spun her lengthwise on the gurney.

_Why?_ Maura mouthed

_Why? Why!_ He growled, grabbing her face and squeezing it in a vice between his fingers he turned her head to face Jane. _Because_…he whispered…_it's not about beating her, it's about utterly destroying her...and you dear Doctor, are just collateral damage. Weak, useless collateral damage._ He spat in her face as he talked, droplets of saliva spraying with his vehement words.

He climbed onto the gurney, straddling her as he slowly but with purpose pulled loose the knot of his hospital pants.

_NO!_

Maura strained at the sound of Jane's voice, commanded herself to fight, do anything, just…_MOVE_. It was infuriating, no response. _Jane. Jane! Do anything to me, just not in front of Jane. _The words screamed in her brain but never spilled forth from her lips_._

He slipped the hospital pants down over his bony hips and revealed his erection. His hand gripped her knees and forced her legs apart, sliding with excruciating calculation down her thighs to push her skirt up. Maura closed her eyes, molten tears of shame and disgust breaching the dam and scorching her face. The sound of her panties tearing struck her gut like a harpoon, barbs splaying wide and hooking the delicate mess inside her, ripping out the viscera as he pulled the tattered shreds away.

_I've already fucked you like she's always wanted to. Now I'm going to fuck you like she could never dream of._

Maura gasped, tossing her head as her eyes clenched tighter shut, her throat closing and blocking her breath. He was inside her.

Maura opened her eyes and let her head loll to the side. _Jane._ Their eyes met for a moment before Jane turned her head…away.

There was only Hoyt, the weight of him on top of her, hands gripping and squeezing her breasts. There was only Hoyt, inside of her, thrusting, rocking her body with each painful jab. _Lights off._ The room began to darken.

His breath washed over her face, hot, fetid…_grunt…grunt_…the room went black. _You're just collateral damage…grunt…grunt…weak and useless…grunt…grunt._ His body tensed and stilled as he came. A hot exhalation of air wrapped around her ear as he laughed. _Like she could never dream of._

* * *

><p>"Get off!" Maura screamed, her hands wrapping around Jane's throat as her body launched off the bed, nearly knocking Jane from the bed to the hardwood floor.<p>

She paused, trying to breathe; gasping for air she finally took notice of the handfuls of flesh in her grasp. Maura scrambled off the bed, only making it a few steps before the curdling sensation in her gut got the best of her. She vomited on the bedroom floor. _Breathe…breathe_, she instructed herself amidst the retching. _Breathe…or you're going to…_

Darkness. The dimly lit room faded to black.

"Maura!" Jane had followed closely behind, reaching for Maura as she threw up only to catch her as she fell. She collapsed to the floor, cradling Maura in her lap as she settled.

"Maur…Maur?" Jane brushed her hair back and tapped gently on her cheek, "Come on babe, come back to me." Maura's eyes fluttered open as she groaned.

"Bathroom," Maura croaked as she came to.

The washcloth was cool on her neck and Jane's arm was comforting wrapped around her midsection, hand rubbing light circles on her stomach as she continued to vomit until there was nothing left.

"Ok," Jane whispered soothingly in her ear as she moved the washcloth from Maura's neck to dab at her mouth, "you're just heaving now, take a breath." Maura reached greedily for the glass of water Jane offered. "That's it, get that taste out."

"He raped me." Her body shook as she said it.

"Hey…hey," Jane's hands settled firmly on her face, "It was a dream…only a dream. Think. Remember."

Maura's fingers wrapped slowly around Jane's wrists, desperate to maintain the contact as she trusted the brown eyes staring back at her. She closed her eyes. _You'll feel a slight pinch, Doctor. Don't you touch her! NO. I win!_

"You stopped him," Maura muttered, her eyes still closed.

"I stopped him," Jane repeated.

Jane flopped back against the bathroom wall, the cool tile of the floor easing the painful ache that had settled throughout her body. "Come here," she reached out, pulling Maura into her lap.

"I dreamed he raped me…twice," Maura whispered into her neck.

She didn't want to share this with Maura. But, at the same time, there was no denying the unintended catalyst he had become. Out of his hate, out of his evil there was the love of the woman she was holding in her arms. She had thought hours ago that she was going to die, in a way; she had come to terms with it. _Maura._ There was something…someone worth living for and that someone with nothing but the touch of her skin had put her back together, stopped the bleeding and patched the cracks. She wouldn't wish this pain on anyone, but Hoyt had imposed it. He was dead. They were alive. Maura made her feel unbroken…with time, she could knit Maura back together as well.

Trembling hands pushed Jane's shirt up her abdomen, kneading hungrily at the skin, touching the scar and then moving to soak in the rhythmic thumping of her heart.

"We're alive," Maura's fingers curled into a heated chest, her nails digging painfully in to the flesh, and gripping at the bone, but Jane didn't flinch.

"We are."

"Can I? I just want to feel your body against mine…it makes me feel…" Maura paused trying to find words of sanity amidst what seemed so absurd.

"Makes you feel like that force in your chest that wants to tear you apart as it claws its way out is stilled?" Jane lifted Maura's chin so that their eyes could meet in a moment of mutual understanding. Maura nodded. "I know."

Jane reached for the hem of her shirt and with little thought stripped it off and tossed it aside. She let Maura's hands take in the naked expanse for a moment before grabbing Maura's shirt and pulling it slowly over her head.

"Better?" Jane asked as Maura eased flush against her, arms wrapping around her back as her head settled in the crook of Jane's neck.

Maura's lips pressed lightly to the bandage that covered his mark, "No more monsters."

* * *

><p>The tickling sensation started around her ankles and became more apparent, drawing her out of sleep the higher it traveled up her legs before the woolen touch on her shoulder beckoned her eyes to open.<p>

"Ma?" Jane whispered, looking from her mother, to Maura who was still sleeping in her arms as she sat propped against the bathroom wall, to the blanket that Angela had draped over them.

One hand settled on Jane's cheek as the other stroked lightly through Maura's hair, "I just brought some food over. I wanted to check on you. I was worried."

Jane's arms tightened instinctively around Maura, "What time…?"

"9 am," Angela noted the movement under the blanket and tried her best to give her daughter a reassuring smile.

"Rough night…" Jane choked out, her eyes squeezing shut as salty tears taunted her weary skin.

"Baby…" Angela's thumbs were soothing as they wiped the moisture away.

It was hard being the strong one. Everyone expected that from her. Maura was the only one who didn't expect it all the time and that was all the more reason why she had to be that person now. This wasn't how it was supposed to be, this wasn't how her mother was supposed to find her.

Jane opened her eyes, she tried as best she could to still her body as the sobs beat their way out…Maura needed the sleep so desperately. "Ma…I…we…" Her throat burned and as she tried to speak she couldn't even be sure if the words were real or only an imagining.

"Shh," Angela pressed her lips to Jane's forehead, wiping at the new tears and pushing back her tangled hair. She looked at Maura, her hand coming to rest lightly on her upper back before she urged Jane to look at her. "My baby."

"Ma…Maura and I…" Jane didn't know why she needed to say it, as if it wasn't obvious, but for some reason the words wanted to come.

Angela shook her head, "Shh, I know. My baby…my Janie." Her touch was soft, thumbs massaging comfortingly into her temple as she watched deep brown eyes slip away behind torture-exhausted lids.

She leaned in and kissed Jane on the cheek, "No more monster."


End file.
